The field of the disclosure is cutlery bundle holders and more specifically a mechanical assemblage for maintaining a napkin in a folded or bundled state.
When people entertain guests at their homes or other locations, they often want to make events special and memorable. One way to make events special and memorable is by decorating event venues in unique ways that reflect the reason an event is held. For instance, people routinely decorate their homes for Christmas parties, Easter parties, graduations, baby showers, Halloween, Fourth of July parties, etc. Another way to make events special and memorable is to serve special foods and beverages.
When food is served at an event, in most cases utensils and napkins are provided for use by each guest. In many cases when utensils and napkins are provided, a host will temporarily package those items together to form a utensil set that is easy for guests to grab and handle so that the guests do not have to individually select each item required to eat. For instance, in some cases a host may wrap a napkin around a stack of utensils including a knife, a fork and a spoon and may tuck a corner of the napkin into a napkin crease to secure the napkin about the utensil stack. As another instance, in some cases a host may simply tie a string about a napkin and utensil kit to maintain the kit in a bundled state until used.
Yet another solution to maintain a kit bundle has been to provide napkin rings that form cylindrical passageways where a napkin and utensil stack bundle are slid part way into the ring and the inner surface of the ring applies a compressing force on the bundle to maintain the napkin wrapped around the stack. In some cases, to accommodate different napkin thicknesses and utensil stack dimensions, a ring may include some type of elastic component so that the radial dimensions of the ring are flexible.
In many cases event hosts want napkin and utensil holders to compliment or even enhance their decorations for specific events. For example, a Christmas themed napkin ring may compliment a Christmas napkin, table decorations and other decorations within a host's home. As another example, a baby shower themed ring may compliment decorations for a baby shower. Other themed rings may be desirable for an Easter brunch, a Halloween party, a Fourth of July party, a retirement party, a wedding reception, etc.
Each of the bundle maintaining solutions above have shortcomings. Tucked napkin corners routinely become dislodged and therefore the bundles fall apart. Tied strings, like tucked corners, often become undone if the tied knot is loose or fragile when initially tied. In other cases where a string knot is robust, string removal is often cumbersome and annoying, especially for older guests who may have poor eye sight or difficulty undoing a tight knot. In addition, in the case of a tucked napkin or a knotted string, in known cases, these solutions cannot be used to enhance or compliment a themed event by including themed decoration, graphics, etc.
Non-flexible rings cannot optimally accommodate napkin and utensil bundles of different dimensions. In some cases a small dimensioned bundle may fit too loosely within a rigid ring while in other cases a large dimension bundle may not fit at all. Flexible rings having some elasticity to them are often flimsy and can be damaged if the elastic material is stretched too far.
In the case of themed rings, in most cases consumers are unable to justify the cost associated with the rings given how infrequently the themes associated with the rings occur. For instance, Christmas, Easter, Halloween and other holidays only happen once a year and other events like a wedding, retirement, a baptism, etc., may only occur once in a person's life so that the expense associated with themed rings cannot be justified by most event hosts.
In addition, while rings that are themed can be purchased, in most cases there is no easy way to further personalize those rings for individual and unique events. For instance, in known cases text cannot be added to a ring such as “Happy Anniversary” or “Congrats Sue and Jim”. Similarly, personalized graphics like a person's image, a favorite design, etc., cannot be added to known rings.
Thus, there is a need for a better utensil bundle maintaining solution that can accommodate different dimension bundles, that is easy to tighten and release, that can be specially themed and that is inexpensive so that the assembly can be disposable if desired. In addition, it would be advantageous if the solution were reusable or easily re-themed so that a host that routinely entertains could change the solution appearance to customize for different events. Moreover, it would be advantageous in some cases if the solution allowed a host to quickly and easily customize graphics for specific events.